After being manufactured, the functions of device, for instance, an add-on device of a computer system or an IC chip, is usually tested by a predetermined manner. The add-on device include the well known interface card.
A conventional approach to test an interface card is to install the interface card into a dedicated interface slot and to test whether the interface card operates as designed. However, to remove an interface card from the slot or insert an interface card into the slot of computer system, the operator must turn off the power to the computer system and the interface card first. After each interface card to be tested is inserted into the interface slot, the operator re-powers on the computer system. Afterwards, the computer system spends some times to do initialization. When a large amount of devices are required to test, it is evident that time-consuming power-on and initialization procedures of the computer system are involved in this conventional approach.
A test apparatus, illustrated in FIG. 1, was developed by Leap Corporation which allows the replacement of an interface card under continuous power-on condition of the computer system. The test apparatus 12 is attached to a first slot 11 on the computer system 10. The test apparatus 12 includes a slot 17 for insertion of the interface card 18 to be tested and the slot 17 transmits the data/address lines 131, the power lines 141, and the reset line 151 of the second bus 171. The test apparatus 12 further includes switch circuits 13, 14, and 15 each of which are respectively electrically connected to the slot 17 by the data/address lines 131, the power lines 141, and the reset line 151. The switch circuits 13, 14, and 15 are respectively electrically connected to the first slot 11 by the data/address lines 112, the power lines 113, and the reset line 114 of the first bus 111. As the switch circuit 13 is turned on by the control signal 191 from the switch button 161, the data/address lines 112 on the first bus 111 make connection to the data/address lines 131 on the second bus 171. As the switch circuit 14 is turned on by the control signal 192 from the switch button 162, the power supplies on power lines 113 are applied to the power lines 141 of the second bus 171. As the switch circuit 15 is turned on by the control signal 193 from the switch button 163, the reset signal on the reset line 114 is transmitted to the reset line 151 of the second bus. On the contrary, as the switch circuit 13 is turned off, the data/address lines 112 on the first bus 111 are isolated from the data/address lines 131 on the second bus 171. As the switch circuit 14 is turned off, the power lines 141 of the second bus 171 are cut off from the power supplies. As the switch circuit 15 is turned off, the reset signal does not appear on the reset line 151 of the second bus. In general, the first bus 111 and the second bus 171 are standard bus, such as ISA, EISA, PCI, and AGP, respectively.
The test can be accomplished with the assistance of three manually operated switch buttons 161, 162, 163. During initial power-on, all switch buttons 161, 162, 163 are activated. When replacement of the interface card 18 under the test environment shown in FIG. 1 is required, three manually operated switch buttons 161, 162, 163 are utilized to individually control the connection of the data/address signals, the power supplies and the reset signal. Therefore, in most conditions, the test apparatus provided by LEAP Corporation performs the function test efficiently. However, when the bus 111, 171 involved are the PCI or AGP bus, the test apparatus 12 shown in FIG. 1 is still inconvenient due to following reason. Different from an add-on device employing the EISA or ISA bus, an add-on device employing a PCI bus or AGP bus must be configured by the BIOS of the computer system 10 rather than the physical setup. Therefore, each time to test a PCI-type or AGP-type add-on device under the test environment shown in FIG. 1, the computer system 10 needs to reset and to re-configure the PCI-type or AGP-type add-on device. Besides, it is evident that the test procedures involved in the test apparatus 12 of FIG. 1 cannot be automated due to the manually operated switch buttons 161, 162, 163 in the test apparatus 12.
Accordingly, it is main objective of the invention to provide an apparatus and method for testing an add-on device or integrated circuit chip in an efficient way. The concept of this present invention is equally applicable to the test of an add-on device employing EISA, ISA, PCI, or AGP bus, etc.